


Fall Into the Spiral

by NOT_Kirie_Goshima



Category: Uzumaki
Genre: ALL of the spirals, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Injury, all of them - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-07-24
Packaged: 2018-04-10 23:33:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4412246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NOT_Kirie_Goshima/pseuds/NOT_Kirie_Goshima
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slightly canon-divergent retelling of some parts of Chapter 19 because I am trash. Starts with Shuichi falling off the spiral staircase. Based on my headcanon that because the Spiral causes time to get all weird, Shuichi was actually lying there in the Spiral city for about a month before Kirie fell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fall Into the Spiral

**Author's Note:**

> This is only kinda canon-divergent, because the ending stays the exact same as the canon one, but meh. My fics are all also posted on Tumblr at clausus-intra-spiralus (which is in fact mainly an Uzumak blog because I am trash).

The moment that thing attacked Kirie, Shuichi knew. He knew he was going to fall off the staircase, and most likely die in the process; but that was okay, completely worth it if it meant Kirie would live. Nonetheless, he couldn’t stop himself from screaming as the spiral-man’s clammy limbs twisted gruesomely around his own body, tightly and constrictive, and pushed both of them off the staircase.

What a long fall. This was ridiculous. Who would build such a huge staircase? There was stuff carved into it, too. Some of it was coherent Japanese, from all different eras. Some was rudimentary symbols, like the writing of cavepeople. Most of it was spirally. Much to his surprise, Shuichi could actually read all of it; mostly people who had come down here before writing warnings or passages worshipping the Eternal Spiral. He couldn’t really make out all of it, given that he was kind of falling. Quickly.

That light, the faint white dot at what used to be an infinitely far-away bottom of the staircase, was growing now. Not rapidly growing, but definitely growing. The light felt wrong. Desperately wrong. The closer Shuichi came to it, the more intensely he felt the horrifying omnipresence of the Spiral resonating through everywhere in Kurôzu-Cho. Was he even in Kurôzu-Cho, anymore? Did this count as part of the town? It must have.So many people were down there. Shuichi could hear them in his head. Twenty-thousand people; men, women, children, everyone was down there. Some people were still clinging to their lives, screaming silent pleas to whoever could hear them. Help me. Please, help me. Their voices were fading quickly, of course, as they all died. No help was coming. There wasn’t anyone left to help. There never was, not in this town. Shuichi knew he was crying, now, but his tears seemed almost to go up due to the speed at which he was falling.

At some point, the staircase cut off. In the center of the hollow, there was a massive spirally obelisk-like thing. obviously intended to block the staircase. Which meant Kirie had better go back up and get herself out now, before that thing got her. This turn of the Spiral would be over soon, taking everybody with it.Very suddenly, Shuichi realized that the formerly hot and clammy spiralled limbs twisted around him had become very much solid; and to his horror, he watched as the man who’d pushed him off in the first place crackled to stone, then all at once fell to dust. That wasn’t good. That must mean the bottom of this thing was near. Yes, that was it. The light was all around Shuichi now, almost blinding him.

Wham. Finally, the impact that Shuichi had been trying to brace himself for for maybe an hour now came. And Shuichi screamed. Adrenaline did nothing in the face of the terrible, searing pain that shot throughout his entire body as he hit the ground. Hard. He could actually hear some bones crunch and crack. He felt like his brain was rattling around in his skull, he couldn’t breathe at all from the force of the impact–or was it from falling? Or the spiral man who had just recently turned to stone?

Whatever it was, Shuichi knew he was going to die soon. Frankly, he shouldn’t be alive right now. Nobody could survive, well, what had to have been a two-kilometer fall. It wasn’t physically possible.This place; what on earth was it? Part of the Spiral, that was for certain. The very air here felt like it was writhing in discomfort at the presence of such a terrible force, creating the most uncomfortable prickling sensation against Shuichi’s skin. The floor was comprised of bodies; some of them were stone already, others were only partially so, some were still flesh, all of them were disgusting. Mutilated, twisted, and staring at one of the largest buildings in what appeared to be a city of the Spiral. A shrine of some kind? A cult? Either way; Kurôzu-Cho had been bad, but this place was worse by far.

Why am I not dead yet? Was all Shuichi could think at this point. Hours passed, and he should have died from so many different causes now it was getting ridiculous. The physical trauma from impact with the ground, the lack of breath, the lack of food, drink, sleep, etcetera, Shuichi knew he should be very much dead now. But he wasn’t. This wasn’t fair. The Spiral had taken away his family, his home, everything he had, and now it wouldn’t even let him die. You asshole. Isn’t that enough for you? You tortured and killed twenty-thousand people. Now’s your chance to add another to the count, so why won’t you do it?

Eventually, hours turned to days. And days turned to Shuichi completely losing track of how much time had passed with him just lying there in serious pain cursing the Spiral and Kurôzu-Cho and Azami Kurotani and Mitsuru Yamaguchi and everyone and everything except Kirie, and the other Goshimas–whatever had happened to them? Had Mitsuo been eaten? Had Yasuo and Aiko been trapped inside the row house? Or had they escaped? Did they think Kirie was dead? Did they know Chie was dead? Were they down here somewhere, tangled up with everyone else and turned to stone? Such a kind family, they didn’t deserve that. Heck, barely anyone in Kurôzu-Cho deserved this. Not even Azami and Mitsuru! Shuichi would’ve loved to see them locked up behind bars, but not dead, and certainly not dead in the way they were.

But they were dead, and everyone was dead, and everything was dead, and everything was spiral-shaped, and the full weight of the entire Spiral was being kept alive now in the mind of the only living being in the vicinity, and that living being was Shuichi. The parasitic force wore at his mind and the laws of physics wore at his body.It was impossible to know how much time passed while Shuichi lay there completely still with only the Spiral to talk to. Weeks? Probably. Months? Maybe. Could it have been years?

Until one day. Something else fell from the staircase. A hallucination, no doubt–but it was beautiful. It looked like a whirling ball of soft green light. There was someone inside, suspended in the middle of it, spinning slowly as they fell. What did a hallucination like this mean? Aside, of course from the fact that Shuichi had finally lost it.

The ball of light landed, and dissipated. The figure inside of it landed on their–her, it looked like–feet. Walked around a bit. Got slightly closer, and Shuichi realized that it was the figure of a tall woman with short ginger hair, wearing a white blouse and a black pleated skirt–Kirie. The apparition looked like Kirie. Oh, and here he’d thought this couldn’t get worse. No, now he was hallucinating about Kirie! Kirie was long gone, now. Either she’d gotten out of Kurôzu-Cho, or she’d died trying. Shuichi liked to think it was the former. He was happy to live out the rest of his days like this knowing it was for her sake.

The apparition of Kirie continued to simply wander the corpse-littered floor of the Spiral city. It knelt down at one point. Looking at something, from the looks of it, one of the bodies. And then, it turned in Shuichi’s direction and approached him, slowly. Shuichi turned away and closed his eyes, willing the vision to go away. Until he felt something touch his shoulder. That wasn’t normal for visions, what was the Spiral playing at? Irritated and feeling deeply violated, Shuichi opened his eyes and turned to face the apparition. And almost immediately, his eyes brimmed with tears. She was there, kneeling beside him, every bit as magnificent as he remembered her, with that usual look of confusion on her face.

“Shuichi…? You’re alive!”  
“Y-you can’t be here…”  
“And why is that? I am here.”  
“No…t-this isn’t–”  
“Real? This is real, Shuichi, I’m here, how long has it been, for you?”  
“No.”

Once again, Shuichi shut his eyes and refused to look. Kirie couldn’t be here. She had to be somewhere better, up on the surface, in some normal town. Kirie, for it was actually her, found herself tearing up as she realized that it must have been far too long for Shuichi since they’d last been together.

“Look at me, Shuichi, I’m not a vision. I promise.”  
“K-Kirie escaped…she had to, oh god.”

Was that what he thought? That Kirie had gone back up the staircase and left? Heavens, no! She’d ran down the staircase and eventually fallen, herself. Shaking her head and biting back tears, Kirie very carefully wrapped her arms around Shuichi and cradled his limp body against herself.

“A vision couldn’t move you physically, Shuichi, dear. I’m real. I fell just after you did. It’s only been less than an hour, for me.”

And with that, both survivors of the Spiral fell to tears. This really was it. They were never leaving this city, never leaving the Spiral. They would join these tangled up knots of flesh on the floor and turn to stone over the centuries. It was time to surrender to the Spiral, wasn’t it. Give in.

“You can’t move, can you? Oh well. I can’t fight it anymore, you know. Let’s complete the Spiral together.”

Drying the tears from her eyes, Kirie lay down beside Shuichi. The two quickly wrapped their arms around each other, and just like that, they felt their hands twist and turn horrifically. There was an ear-splitting whirring noise, and Shuichi nearly screamed–but his lips didn’t move. He went to open his eyes, but those wouldn’t move either. He couldn’t move a muscle. Frozen completely with the Spiral running through him, Shuichi almost regretted surrendering, the entire Spiral visible to him now made him feel utterly helpless and so tiny, like a leaf blowing in a hurricane, and then it stopped. The Spiral stopped spinning. It was almost as if the world stopped turning.

All at once, the cold light beaming out from the buildings in the city went out completely. It was only at this point that Shuichi fully registered he wasn’t breathing, and only after that he realized he didn’t have to. That was it. He and Kirie weren’t dead at all, they were frozen. Frozen in time and in space for the Spiral only knows how long. By that logic, centuries could have just passed, right then. Maybe Shuichi already hadn’t moved, talked, breathed, in a thousand years.

When the lights went out, the feeling of twistedness faded and Shuichi felt it slowly turn into a very unfamiliar feeling. Not an unpleasant one, either. And then, a sudden burst of pure euphoria. That was what it was: completion. A feeling of being complete. Unfamiliar because of course Shuichi had never been more complete than here, frozen in Kirie’s arms, at the very center of the Eternal Spiral, the perfect place and situation. So the Spiral could feel good, too. Of course it could, when it was complete.

The massive spiral obelisk-thing trembled, then shot upwards, spinning into the staircase and blocking the city from all access until Kurôzu-Cho was rebuilt and the Spiral awoke again, and, able to communicate through internal dialogue, Shuichi and Kirie were at peace. And would be, for centuries.


End file.
